File Format:

Adobe Reader

1
Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Reed Coleman
Date of Interview: October 28, 2009
Location of Interview: Wisconsin
Interviewer: Mark Madison & Steve Laubach
Most Important Projects: The Leopold Memorial Reserve
Colleagues: Howard Mead, Frank Terboilcox and various neighbors
Brief Summary of Interview: Reed starts out with a little bit of background on the type of person he is. He talks about how the Leopold Memorial Reserve got started and who helped to start it. He also talks about the basic concept, objectives, threats and changes of the Reserve through the years. And he mentions the differences between the Leopold Memorial Reserve and the Leopold Foundation.
2
Mark: (laughing) with what you just said.
Reed: Oh you want (unclear).
Mark: Yea I thought that was a good introduction.
Reed: If you think that’s important to the process.
Mark: I think it gives some insight into your character and that’s important.
Reed: Um well I’ll just go through it again I …
Mark: Sure.
Reed: …indicating that my three favorite uh forays into history are uh an understanding of Will and Aerial Durant’s lessons of history so that I’m not likely to make mistakes based on what has gone before, uh I enjoy The Prince because it tells me um…what I ought to know about what people might be trying to do to me and then I uh look at the decline and fall of the Roman empire by given as somewhat of an indication of what might be happening, happening in today’s society. My entire life, the interests that I’ve had either to start something, that needs to be done and to help build it to the point where it’s pretty much routine, then I get out or to fix something that’s broken and once fixed and back on track and operating normally, get out. Uh and one of the things that I really love about Sand County Foundation is that its almost always broken, it can never be really fixed and uh everyday there’s something new to start. So that just gives you a little background on the kind of person that you’re going to be expecting to tell you the details of the history of Leopold Memorial Reserve.
Mark: Okay. Well let’s start at the beginning. Um who were some of the folks, the earliest folks that worked with you to start up the Reserve? 3
Reed: Uh Howard Mead and Frank Terbilcox.
Mark: Okay. And how did you guys first come together and brainstorm this idea?
Reed: Um Howard and I were drinking martini’s and cooking duck, it’s true, (Mark laughing) (unclear) and lamenting the fact that, that we like to go up to uh our cabin and that there was nobody there paying any attention to the Leopold shack, the family was pretty much all out of, out of the city or out of touch or otherwise occupied and they were selling 33 foot lots along the riverfront uh right up next to the Leopold property. And we really did talk about what we could do and how we could do something to keep that from damaging the Leopold property and uh ruled out the DNR, ruled out the state and literally at that point sort of came up and said “Well, why don’t we get a bunch of people to agree to not develop it, put some restrictions on it.” And uh Frank was tired of getting up at midnight to go and turn on the broiler in his Ross Floral Company so as we moved down the line we talked to him and he said “Yeah, I like to get involved” and then of course eventually became the manager.
Mark: Okay. Were there other models that you guys…
Reed: No.
Mark: …emulated? So you just came up with this all on your own?
Reed: Seemed like a good idea.
Mark: Okay. Who were the first land owners that were invited to participate?
Reed: Uh, inviting would be an unusual phrase uh but we made a map to look at who they were: it included Collins and Leopold’s and Terbilcox’s, which of course was a major section of what we’re trying to do. And then the Turners’ the Van Heusens were 4
the two key elements that we needed to have included and of course those were the ones that was most fun trying to convince them that we weren’t a hunting club from Chicago or the Wisconsin DNR. And I think those were the ones that we really attained uh permission from at the offset.
Mark: Did anybody refuse to join?
Reed: Uh no.
Mark: No.
Reed: But it was a long, hard sell.
Mark: How long did it take to sell?
Reed: I don’t remember. (Mark laughing) But there was a lot of evening in farm kitchens at the Turners’ and the Van Heusens and uh the Leopold’s is interesting, I’m not, you know that’s a whole just line through is whole history. Uh I really don’t remember much about their participation other than that they were willing to do it. Uh the basic concept, which was one of the questions that you asked, uh…if we could get a number of landowners to agree to not do certain things, and that was really to change the agricultural patterns and to change the structural patterns and if we could then get them to permit the entire area to be studied as a unit instead of each on their own individual basis for both research and education. And if we could then obtain, which was really the only legal thing we every got, which was (coughed) excuse me, which was uh the first right of refusal recorded and the consideration for that was to pay their property taxes, very simple.
Mark: Was the agreement signed by everybody then or was it…
Reed: Yea. 5
Mark: …but it wasn’t, the only legal part was the first write up?
Reed: What, well there was the agreement and then there was the first right of refusal, which was recorded.
Mark: Okay.
Reed: But the agreement was never recorded.
Steve: And research and education was part of the division from the start, you’re saying it wasn’t simply to protect the land that uh.
Reed: Well that depends on whether you’re talking about the martini party or once we got going on things here.
Steve: Right.
Reed: And got Frank involved and his becoming management. I don’t know what those timelines are (unclear).
Steve: Yea I’m not gonna.
Reed: …make any difference.
Mark: But what was the primary mission, if you had to say what the mission was at the inception? We can talk about how it changed, but at the inception if you would say you know was it research, was it preservation, was it…
6
Reed: It was whatever of those things we could convince two completely (unclear) farmers with something they would be willing to put up with. And that’ll sort of come into play when we get to what ought to happen on the LMR (unclear).
Mark: (laughing) Okay we won’t jump ahead then.
Reed: But uh I think the thought that was any grand scheme when we started to do this would be unheard. Uh I drafted the, I drafted the agreement; I just sat down with a dictating machine and drafted it, I don’t think it got changed much from what I drafted. I haven’t looked at it for a long time.
Mark: Okay. And when you first did the agreement, you mentioned the martini party and so on but what was the biggest threat to this landscape? Was it being developed or was it just uh…
Reed: Well we were, I think the trigger, if you want to look at that, was the combination of the absence of any of the Leopold’s in the area and uh the fact that they had sold all these lots on property that was adjacent. And you have to remember I’d spent most of my high school and uh some grade school weekends up there, as a kid so that place was very special to me. You know, you know it just happened.
Mark: What was it like going to the shack as a kid? I know I’ve deviated from the inception part.
Reed: The shack as a kid.
Mark: Yea, yea.
Reed: The Leopold kids picked on me, basically. And I was the guy who got to pump the water and carry the buckets through the trees.
Mark: That’s a lot of buckets. 7
Reed: Steve’s heard the story (unclear) swinging the birches.
Steve: No, haven’t heard that one.
Reed: You know how to swing a birch?
Steve: (unclear)
Reed: Jeepers (unsure of spelling)
(Laughing)
Mark: Maybe we need to…
Reed: What a lost youth you had. Uh you pick a birch of a certain size and theoretically uh (unclear). And you shimmy up it to where you think you are at the right place, then you grab it with both hands and you swing out. If you’ve made a good decision then it’ll gently drop you down on to the ground and then you can let go and it’ll go back up. So they use to encourage me to swing off too early so that I would end up on, about that far off the ground. (Mark and Steve laughing) Anyway, that’s a digression.
Mark: (laughing) but a good one.
Steve: Um.
Mark: Go ahead.
Steve: There’s the Coleman cabin on the property, now is that a later, is that something that you went to growing up as well.
8
Reed: Oh yea.
Steve: Okay.
Reed: Well the land we would go to, mostly we would to go Leopold’s. Now we had this vacant across Chapman Lake from the Leopold property. And I think it was ’45 or ’46 when uh our family bought the horse barn down the road from, from the Leopold’s down the river, which had been the cabin, the story and a half cabin for Mrs., you probably know better than I, the old lady who…can’t remember her name, but she had been born there and I remember going to talk to her and she would be able to tell you about Indians going by on the River Road in front of her cabin. Bought the cabin for a hundred dollars, disassembled it, uh it had been a horse farm so the lower maybe three courses of logs were rotten, but the logs were all numbered and I used to work at the camp; went up on weekends, moved it over and reassembled it on our property. Then we were able to begin to use that as well as the shack, the shack property we would just go up for a day and back the same day.
Steve: Okay.
Reed: Nobody wanted to sleep on those beds.
Mark: Did, in the early years you mentioned um going to farmers houses over kitchen tables and talking, were there organizational meetings, I mean did you have meetings where you actually took minutes and had to prescribe…
Reed: (speaking at same time as Mark) I saw the question.
Mark: Yeah.
Reed: And I think we tried to have a meeting once a year with the people who were on the reserve just to sort of bring them up to date. But uh, you know, people died, moved 9
uh it wasn’t necessary and the people who were actively involved were Leopold, Terbilcox and Collins, and Collins pretty much knew what was going on anyway so. But there was no, there was no structure.
Mark: You didn’t have a formal (unclear). [laughing] Cuz that’s what they’re getting at is that they’re trying to find out if there was…
Reed: Yea we probably did have something but it was probably ignored.
Mark: Well that’s one of the issues that came up the, they um, it seems like they’ve got good records for the Reserve from like 1975 onward. Did you guys keep detailed records before ’75.
Reed: No, not that I know of.
Mark: So, so they don’t exist. [Laughing]
Reed: I suppose there could be some correspondence buried in what we call the black hole out here but nobody wants to go up there and starting looking for it. But I don’t think um, I think it would have been…gee I just don’t know, I mean I don’t, there was no, now when did Charlie Bradley show up?
Steve: ’75
Reed: Yea.
Steve: ‘76
Mark: Yea ’75.
Reed: And that’s a basic, this thing was all pretty much (unclear) and, you know, once we got it together and once we accomplished and Frank did the management and I don’t 10
remember when Frank actually left Ross permanently uh or when he became a full-time. But uh then when Charlie came then we really began to have what I think we had all sort of thought could happen on a fifteen hundred acre piece of land that was individually owned but could be used uh in common for research and education. We had, you know, we had tours, Frank conducted tours, Charlie did his research I mean at that point it took a life uh of it’s own and onto itself.
Mark: Were you, were the organizers and you influence by the land ethic at all and if you were, was it (unclear) or did you talk about it?
Reed: No. (Unclear) we never sat down and said…
Steve: Be philosophical.
Reed: …this is all about the land ethic. I think if you spent the time I spent with the Leopold’s as a kid and in the late ‘60’s I had already spent four years in environmental science in college and in ecological so I probably had a pretty good idea of what it was without going to the Sand County Almanac and saying “Oh” or the essay and saying “Oh, there it is.”
Mark: Was it in the back of your minds that’s what you were doing though when…
Reed: I thought it was just the right thing to do and pretty much I think the land ethic is a description of what the right thing to do should be if you owned land.
Mark: Okay, good.
Reed: But, you know, I…these questions sort of describe a context that may not be fully justified.
11
Mark: Well, I was at some of the meetings and they’re fishing because, they’re fishing for information cuz we don’t know. [Laughing] You know the answer to many of these questions may well be “No” (unclear, laughing).
Reed: That’s why this is going to be short.
[Sounds like everyone laughing]
Mark: Did you guys…and we’re not trying to jump ahead to where you are now, but did you have a vision about what the place might look like, you know, five years into it when you first began? Did you, how did you envision it?
Reed: We pretty, pretty well made it up as we went along and Frank came on board and uh how could we teach what Leopold thought the kids and school kids and so forth and so and so we made trails. And, you know, that was as visionary as buying a mower on a tractor and Frank loved to mow trails and so we (unclear). And uh poison ivy control was a big deal, if you want to know one of the most evasive species um…yea I (unclear) developed, it happened, worked it’s way up to something and then Charlie came and it became much more serious.
Mark: Yea. Did the neighbors who weren’t directly involved in the Reserve know what you guys were doing? Were they generally supportive?
Reed: Um huh, and they liked it, they like it yea.
Mark: I could imagine they would be.
Reed: They thought it was great.
Steve: You mentioned though that was a hard sell to the Turner’s and the Van-Heusens, what made that a hard, what were some of their objections? 12
Reed: “Well who the hell are these guys coming into my, writing me a letter saying we like to meet with you” and we were either a gun club from Chicago (unclear) from Chicago and…they didn’t believe that anybody was really going to do this, I mean they couldn’t understand why these two people or three people (unclear) uh but it was mostly Frank and Reed. But “why are you doing this”, you know, “what’s in it for you” or “who are you fronting for” or “what are we going to find out that’s bad after we agree to do this.” It’s just, you know, hey here’s who we are, here’s what we want to do, believe us.
Mark: To overcome the skepticism . Now we’re moving into the questions about how the reserve’s changed over time and uh the first question we had there was, have you’ve seen land management or land use change in that area since 1965, (unclear).
Reed: Uh…sure, part of it was on purpose and part of it was controlled burns, the great expert trying to make an oak opening, uh was turned into a raspberry patch instead. Uh and the whole deer quality, hunting ecology for deer, the management hunt on a reserve, uh Frank uh doing some things on his own, which probably didn’t fit the original model but which were fine. I mean if you’re going to have private landowners then you have to say “You know it’s your land, you can do what you want to do.”
Mark: Right.
Reed: And uh when we start talking about the future and how do we do what’s next, uh if you want to get a group of land owners together to do something that’s good for the land, then you really have to go to each one and say “What is, what is the most restriction that you’re willing to except? And what is the most participation that you’re willing to do in order to make this work?” And once you have that then you say “Okay, well that isn’t enough to make a concept work, that isn’t enough to make it a real collaboration.” So their in (unclear), if they do join and you do have, with that reasonable level of private enterprise/private property restrictions, times change, people die, sons and daughters may 13
not wish to so the same thing so it has to continue to be something that the private landowner wants to do and I think maybe that’s part of the answer to your question.
Mark: Yea.
Reed: It came to the point where the Turners and the Van-Heusens, who were really the out layers in this whole thing, decided that this was something that they really wanted to and they did, they came to enjoy it.
Mark: Great. You mentioned a couple of changes that occurred; let me ask you one by one…
Reed: Sure.
Mark: …when some of these occurred. When did the public visits start on the reserve? Was it with the school children?
Reed: That was fairly early, I think, cuz that was mostly Frank Terbolicox. Uh and we didn’t call it public, we had to be very careful not to and uh we had some wonderful, I have signs still that have the uh “Danger” um “No Trespassing” or I can’t remember exactly what it says but it warns you not to enter this property because there’s an extensive poison ivy infestation. Uh I also saw a sign on a western fence this morning on the internet somebody sent me said um “Prayer is the best way to go to heaven, Trespassing is Quicker.” Um and it was uh…can’t remember now which of the Bradley’s, Luna I think, he and I were talking about something and we were talking about trespassing and so forth or maybe Star Trek, I can’t remember which one it was. And he said “Well why don’t you have a radiation sign made, with a symbol and all and then list the (unclear) underneath it” so we did; uh “Warning Radiation” whatever abeyant sunlight (unclear) is, was what we put underneath it and it worked for awhile, not really for very long but we had a good time doing it.
14
Mark: [Laughing] The first night they noticed it didn’t glow, they became suspicious.
Reed: The DNR didn’t show up and say “What are you doing?”
Mark: What about the ecological restoration? You alluded to that earlier, bringing back the oaks and so when did that start?
Reed: Well some of that, I mean, the experiment with the oak opening about five years old. Uh but uh controlled burns goes back a long way uh Charlie’s research goes back to when he really started and uh when the study center was built. Um and then as Frank, Charlie went away and as Frank got older then so those things tended to fall away and then Leopold’s research and interest has uh created that aspect to the quote, unquote “Reserve,” which was probably not a part of the original intention so I’d say that’s probably where the major shift has occurred. And I think that’s one of the reasons why LMR 21st Century is an important part of what we need to do, The Sand County Foundation point of view.
Mark: Yea, very good.
Reed: We don’t like buildings at all uh to be honest with you. Uh we think they focus things on inanimate objects and do not, from The Sand County’s point of view, represent what the Reserve’s, the outdoors, land owning is all about but you know ends with the money. Those with the gold, make the rules so we have the study center up there.
Mark: How has the Reserve, over the years cuz once again we’re looking at changes, affected the surrounding land owners that aren’t part of it, has it given them a better quality of life or you know led to occasional (unclear)?
Reed: Probably as, well if you look at the expansion out into the farm land to the west uh I think the awareness of the Reserve and what it’s doing is appreciated and maybe it gives some people some ideas. Uh I wouldn’t be able to document it. 15
Mark: Sure.
Reed: Any of that, other than the fellow who crops are fields uh had done some things that would be attractive and appealing and thinks he might want to be a member of the Reserve.
Mark: That’s great.
Reed: So who knows, would be the first pig farmer.
[Mark laughing]
Mark: What about deer management? There’s a bunch of questions that suggest, occasionally, deer management has been a point of contention with neighbors.
Reed: Uh.
Mark: I don’t know…
Reed: Deer management, well it was obvious that something had to happen in terms of deer hunting.
Mark: Right.
Reed: And that all sort of came to a head with uh quality hunting/ecology was the term used uh which still goes on. Uh and that’s to try and knock down the doe population, knock down the deer population to uh per square mile to per acre tolerance. Uh and so it was used, the Reserve was used, people wanted to (unclear) to agree to abide by those standards and a lot of people like to hunt there. Uh fifteen hundred acres probably not a large enough unit to do a really, fully capable scientific study but the (unclear) who are 16
quality deer uh activity in Pennsylvania is and so I think it was something that was; Sand County we always looked to see “Have we really done something here that affected policy” and although they say they invited it, the DNR did do essentially the (unclear), uh hunting (unclear). And you know we have a close enough interchange with the DNR so I’m sure it wasn’t, they’d never give us create for it but might have been their stimulus.
Mark: Did the Wisconsin DNR partner with you guys for the…
Reed: In some case, oh yea we’ll work with them as long as we don’t expect them to give us credit uh and as long as it doesn’t tamper with our pol, our concepts and philosophies. But uh and mostly it’s our helping them uh not so much they’re helping us.
Mark: Okay.
Reed: What else is new. So getting back to your question um…we tried to get a property owner across river, Phil Pines, to join in the quality uh hunting/ecology program. He liked deer, he didn’t mind the fact that they were destroying the undergrowth and so forth and so on. So hunting season after a few days all the deer went across the river onto Phil Hines property, when we were through they’d come back. So, but it was a principle and it was a concept and it’s been going on for what 20 years I’ll bet still is so. Okay, what else?
Mark: Over the decades of the Reserve you guys probably came up against various threats, land sell offs, roads and so on, can you recall any of those and how you dealt with them?
Reed: Um sure. Um…the town Highway Department was intent upon paving River Road and cutting down every tree within uh…20 feet of the sign. The way we handled that was to go and get a can of brown spray paint, a can of green spray paint and we went all the way down River Road on a Sunday afternoon and camouflaged off every X mark 17
that they had put on the trees to come down the next week. That was a threat, that would have really kind of ruined the, the um road; I don’t think it’s been paved yet. Is it Steve?
Steve: Levy Road, you mean?
Reed: Yea, no, no well Levy Road is one thing., I’m talking about the road through the Reserve. I think that’s, that’s still gravel?
Steve: I’m not sure which road you’re…
Reed: Well from, from the beginning of the Leopold Reserve to uh the Study Center.
Steve: Oh the one (unclear), I think it is paved now.
Reed: Is it now.
Steve: It’s not, not, the trees are still close to the road.
Reed: Yea, yea and I think that was the next fight, that if they were going to pave it, we understood, you know, they couldn’t keep it in gravel cuz they didn’t have any road graders anymore. And we even offered to pay to have it graded but there was a liability problem and so forth so, but I think that threat was taken care of by having paved to a narrow division and not a full standard. Uh I think one of the most interesting threats came from Leopold family and that was Nina when she wanted to build a house up there and she wanted to put it on a hill above the shack. And we said no and I said no and she didn’t and uh that would have been a real, that would have been an earlier tragedy. The Study Center, the uh Leopold Center and down the block is a later tragedy but and I’m not talking about as this tragedy from the point of view of what they’re trying to do but a tragedy from the point of view of the original concepts of the Reserve as a rather pristine place.
18
Steve: So how long did the negotiations last to have them locate the house to where it is now?
Reed: Uh…several visits. Uh one of which was Nina and I standing in the snow in the middle of a prickly ash…(unclear) and just saying, I just said “No (unclear) happen” and it didn’t. She could’ve done if she wanted to but that would have violated the agreements, it would not have been a good thing for the Leopold family.
Steve: Right.
Reed: And it would not have been, probably she would’ve had to get an exemption because that would have put it in surround by hundred year flood plain. But, you know, she…
Mark: What happened when you raised the issue about the Leopold Center
being built?
Reed: Oh we didn’t.
Mark: [Laughing] Cuz the first you raised it on (unclear).
Reed: No. That’s fine, if they want…there’s a difference between the Leopold Foundation’s objectives than ours.
Mark: Why don’t you tell me what they are as somebody from…
Reed: Very simple.
Mark: …outside.
19
Reed: Very simple. Both are commendable objectives, as far as I’m concerned. Uh the Leopold Foundation wants to memorialize and…create a lasting icon of their father. They want to be the uh curator for all the records, they want to have those records available; all of Sand County records are now at their center. Uh and they want to, to a certain extent uh Nina particular, wants to recreate her feelings for others about being at the shack. So I call it an archival shack related, Leopold as he was when he died objective. Sand County Foundation objectives are to apply what Leopold taught and to make sure that all of his “ethic” and all of the things in which he believed continued to be practiced, understood, not understood by going to read a book in a library, but understood by somebody grasping what it is that they need on the land with honors and doing, if we can help people do that or on the land or in the sea or wherever uh then that’s our Leopold objectives. So there’s a distinct difference. Let ‘em do what they want to do.
Mark: When you…
Reed: Don’t interest me.
Mark: [Chuckling] With the uh…
Reed: Probably interests the historian a whole lot.
Mark: But to get the people out on the land and actually see working land ethic on the land, or a Leopoldian worked site. Who did you envision coming out there, how did you envision that transmission, with the University did you think or just the local land owners?
Reed: The Leopold Memorial Reserve…as it exists now is the uh…the tiny, little piece of yeast in the sourdough bread that has now spread uh to all the lands that Sand County has any influence over; watersheds, ranches, farms, um fisheries. So the original idea, as the Leopold Memorial Reserve has moved on, doesn’t really occur on the Leopold 20
Memorial Reserve anymore for whole lot of reasons. Um we think we can bring some of that back by an educational walk, we can work with the Leopold Foundation to do together. But uh it’s not big enough; it’s just, you know Sand County deals in uh ecological time frames, ecosystem size regions now with the uh collaborative sage brush initiative, 11 states are involved. The only (unclear) is the nut that, from which grew what Sand County does and I don’t expect it to serve as the be all and the end all.
Mark: Are there other goals for the LMR, besides being the yeast in the bread?
Reed: Yea as the…nucleus for a major expansion.
Mark: In the surrounding area or…
Reed: No right there.
Mark: Right there.
Reed: And the whole water, the whole watershed of the Baraboo, Wisconsin on down to where the two meet.
Steve: How about seven years ago, there was that big flap where there was…the press leak about creating a large, expanded…I think it was a fishing pond.
[Mark and Reed talking at same time]
Reed: Oh no, no.
Mark: No, no that was my agency that was the Refuge. That was…
[Everyone laughing]
21
Reed: I wasn’t even going to mention it.
Mark: That was so bungled.
Steve: No that was part of…
Mark: Thanks for bringing it up Steve. I flew all the way across the country and now you gotta pick on the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Reed: I’m not picking on you.
[More laughing, talking at same time also. Can’t understand everything being said]
Reed: I think it (unclear) wonderful but if you’d stopped in here for 20 minutes I could have saved you the trip.
Mark: I know it was (unclear). I’m from Wisconsin, my parents…
Reed: Yea.
Mark: …worked for Dave Obi. I mean they know that, the first thing my dad did was (unclear) said “Well what the heck is wrong the (unclear) they have.” Uh he just, he…
Reed: All you needed to hear was the name Marcus Gums and he would have stayed right where you were.
Steve: (Unclear) as it was coming out of my mouth, I thought “Oh yeah, Fish and Wildlife Service.”
Mark: But we should talk about that cuz that…
22
Reed: Oh yea, I agree.
Mark: Go ahead Reed, I mean you were on the ground here. What happened and how did that affect LMR, that whole flop?
Reed: Well I don’t, uh…that’s an interesting question, I’m not quite sure I mean we tried to do it you know we tried to get going you know that. Sand County was getting up to their elbows in that mud uh and uh…you know we were willing to try anything with Marcus and of course (unclear). He um, uh eventually sued us and so we had to spend some money to take care of that, get rid of him on that. Uh too late for that piece of property, Mark?
Mark: I (chuckling).
Reed: I mean…
Mark: Yea.
Reed: …it’s pretty much gone. I mean it’s not, and that would have required massive watershed participation.
Mark: Yep.
Reed: And so forth. So it wasn’t part of the Reserve to the extent that it was thought to be an entirely entity.
Mark and Steve: Yeah.
Reed: Done in a different way by a much broader range of participants.
Mark: It would have been run as, from what I understand, as a refuge. 23
Reed: Refuge, yea.
Mark: But the, the trend with refuges now is to partner with their neighbors, (unclear), made a bigger corridor, worked with them, I know that was their vision I think.
Steve: That vision sounds like what you were talking about for the Reserve, in terms of scale.
Reed: Exactly. Uh you know we have a lot of Sand County’s initiatives as LMR 21st Century, and it’s to expand it, significantly including the International Bird Area as one of the motivations for doing that. And using the concept I discussed of (unclear) willing to collaborate on, whether you’re willing to share management on a larger piece of land and as we’ve sat around and talked about it, uh we’ve asked Peter (unclear of last name) to give us some help and some others. Um…discussion was “Well how do we do that?” And it may sound odd but my answer was “We’re going to do it just the same way we did the Reserve 40 years ago.” We’re going to go around, we’re going to sit down and talk to people and see what they’re interested in, tell them what we’re trying to do. Uh by this time I think we’re well enough known so we won’t be thought to be a hunting club from Chicago. And if they’re interested and if they’re wanting to do it voluntarily, the Will Writer Reserve Agreement that doesn’t look too much different from what it is. I think the one thing that we’re including in this, which is uh is a different take and that is Collaborative Management. So what you do on your land and I do on my land, we do again have a manager that we all pay, not just the Sand County Foundation as we did with Frank. Yea, there was no collaboration on payment for Frank’s work, that was the Sand County Foundation Costs, so to speak.
Mark: What other goals or priorities do you have for the future of the Reserve?
Reed: That’s pretty much it.
24
Mark: [laughing] That’s a big one.
[Everyone laughing]
Mark: And you already answered. Let me ask one question I should have asked earlier, but you know the Reserve’s been there a longtime; presumably some of the original landowners have passed the land down to their heirs and so on. Did anybody drop out or um question it when they over.
Reed: No, um…no John Van Huesen is now Russ’s son, he participates we just brought that land, I think or made some deal on a first right where he wanted to sell his, sell the house, I guess, I can’t remember exactly what it was. So we accommodate them, the Turners are long gone, I don’t even know who owns that any more. Did we buy that, I’m not sure. The one thing that we still work on but we don’t uh we don’t worry too much about it, is the Dubois property, which is that narrow thing that goes to the west of Leopold property and to the east of the (unclear) property. Uh but I think there’s something like ten or twelve, you know, inheritors and they don’t seem to have any interest in it and so having nothing happen it probably the best thing for it.
Mark: Okay.
Reed: But nobody left, Frank threatened every year or two but he wanted to do something (unclear Reed laughing) someone was tearing down this duck blind, his deer stand or something. There’s a guy I love, he just (unclear) fabulous.
Mark or Steve: Do you have any other…
Reed: We went turkey hunting with Frank, I went turkey hunting with Frank once and he was uh…we got out looking out of the blank about 4 o’clock; cold and one of his medications at that time was Prednisone and so he was going like this (making some motion), 99 miles an hour. And… 25
Steve: (saying something in background)
Reed: …finally he got cold, no turkey’s showed up. He finally looked at me and said “Why are we doing this, when we can go into a store and get one of these suckers for 99 cents a pound.”
[Laughing]
Reed: I had no clue.
Mark: I feel that way about fly fishing. You throw on a worm…
Reed: Now, now.
Mark: You know I get it right away but instead, you know, four times out of five fly fishing back where I do it, gets me nothing.
Reed: Yeah.
Mark: Although I caught a musky on a fly.
Reed: Now that’s an experience.
[Laughing]
Mark: I’ve never done that before.
Reed: But you haven’t stooped a carp fishing with a fly rod yet.
Mark: No, no. 26
Reed: That’s the new, big deal.
Mark: I’ve caught them by accident but you know.
Reed: Why don’t you go out west and fish for trout?
Mark: I do when I get the chance but I’m on the Potomac, mostly I fish in small mouths. I come back here and do walleyes. But I digress, Steve has non-fishing questions. [Laughing]
Steve: Just a couple. Um Sand County Foundation is more international in its focus, was that something, did Sand County Foundation come out of the Leopold Reserve? Or did you have a vision before you started Leopold Reserve for the Sand County Foundation? It wasn’t formed before the Reserve, correct?
Reed: No.
Steve: Was it a product of your work on the Reserve that led you to…
Reed: Well…
Steve: …incorporate that?
Reed: You’re asking a complicated question cuz there’s another part to the Sand County Foundation. The origin of the Sand County Foundation itself, is probably more originated to the Leopold Nature Study Center on the east side of Madison. Uh that was a um…Tuberculosis Sanatorium for Children for many, many years and it had been founded by my grandfather was the doctor. And built with funds from the (unclear of last name) family and as childhood tuberculosis began to disappear, the question was what to do with that piece of property. So we created a 501C3 called it the (unclear) Head 27
Arboretum and we hired an arboretum tractor and we started doing uh K thru 12 tours, primarily K thru 8. The whole idea was to get kids out on the land, belly boards in the pond, uh when we laid out a trail I said there will be no straight away on that trail that’s more than 50 feet before it has to turn so that when you’re going down the trail you’re looking at something and we had tours to look at as you went, so forth and so on. And that was really more of the structural origin of the Sand County Foundation. Uh…because…when the Sand County Foundation got going that no longer really fit the model that, you’re right, we saw for the Sand County Foundation, which was spreading out, going beyond the Reserve, dealing with a lot of other uh issues and landowners and…
Mark or Steve: Policy.
Reed: …whatever needs you want, so forth and so on. So we sort of divested ourselves of the Nature Study Center. And uh Howie Mead went on that board, a couple other people went on that board were sort of from our board, uh and…they hired somebody very good to run the program and for awhile it stayed pretty much, there was still some, see if I get this right without getting too complicated, uh the buildings were taken over by (unclear), which is an alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation…
Steve: It’s still there.
Reed: … Center, still there.
Steve: Yea.
Reed: And the greenhouse and the little potting shed down there, which is where the tours were run out of, stayed as part of the head arboretum and subsequently Sand County Foundation, uh Nature Study Center. And then when we sort of turned it over, at the same time we sold the property to (unclear of name). And this is one of those deals I just smile every time I think of it. It paid Sand County, I think it ended up being a million 28
five, a million four, a million five and the property was fully restricted so that DeLorean could continue to use it for as long as they wanted, that (unclear of name) couldn’t put any recreation equipment on it and that the Study Center had to stay there in (unclear) or for 99 years. So Sand County got a million five and the property continued to be used for the purpose that we wanted it used. Now what’s happened there, so that’s sort of the Sand County structure and then we began to do other things with Sand County. And um, what’s happened out there…um…they built a big building for classrooms. Um they built a miniature shack, for the kids to get in, and they just got an earmark from the state for five hundred thousand dollars to build a climate change laboratory to teach children about climate change. Knowing the political persuasion of the people who now is in charge of that on the board, uh Terry Kelley and including Nina; I would expect that Al Gore will be here for the uh dedication of that classroom. And I will hope that would it not become the Chicken Little environment institute for um (unclear) put it that way. So anytime a building shows up, I’m not particular enthused but that’s what they wanna do.
Mark: We’ve sensed that.
Reed: Twenty thousand kids, they say 20 thousand, I say 15 get out there, they do wonderful things, this gal that runs it now…
Steve: Kathy.
Reed: …Kathy (unclear), she’s great. She still hangs by the concept that you gotta get the kids out, gotta get digging in the mud, doing that kind of stuff.
Steve: Yea.
Reed: And uh, I have a high respect for her. Uh but uh…not my style. Now that didn’t, I’ll bet you’re sorry you ask that question.
Steve: No it actually clarifies things. 29
Reed: But the conclusion to that it is that, Sand County Foundation primarily sees something that needs to be done, figures out if anybody else is doing it. If they’re not, then we’re go out and start doing it and get other people to do it with us. So we don’t really know, almost from year to year sometimes from board meeting to board meeting, what it is that we’re going to pull up and say “This should be done, we think we can get some people to do it with us and we have the capacity to get it done.” So, I mean how did fisheries happen? We realized that fishery resources were being mismanaged; uh we realized that every meeting on fisheries was populated by governmental officials and researchers and we put together two conferences where we invited only fishermen. And it’s had a rather remarkable result, I don’t know if you knew that, I think you did.
[Mark or Steve saying something, too low to hear]
Reed: Sure you did. You just can’t have a guy from the former government official in your room for an hour.
Mark: Taping you.
Reed: Some fun.
[Laughing]
Mark: Do you have (unclear)?
Steve: I have one other question.
Reed: Sure.
30
Steve: Before you mentioned that there’s a black hole of files somewhere and I’ll be the one that’s actually integrating documents and oral interviews so, even if I’d have to go thru many, many…(unclear) I’d be interested.
Reed: Okay, when we conclude, I’ll ask Jackie if she can locate any and all files. [Yelling] DAN, just grab him for me.
Mark: I can stop taping this.
Reed: Yea we’re through with that I think.

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

1
Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Reed Coleman
Date of Interview: October 28, 2009
Location of Interview: Wisconsin
Interviewer: Mark Madison & Steve Laubach
Most Important Projects: The Leopold Memorial Reserve
Colleagues: Howard Mead, Frank Terboilcox and various neighbors
Brief Summary of Interview: Reed starts out with a little bit of background on the type of person he is. He talks about how the Leopold Memorial Reserve got started and who helped to start it. He also talks about the basic concept, objectives, threats and changes of the Reserve through the years. And he mentions the differences between the Leopold Memorial Reserve and the Leopold Foundation.
2
Mark: (laughing) with what you just said.
Reed: Oh you want (unclear).
Mark: Yea I thought that was a good introduction.
Reed: If you think that’s important to the process.
Mark: I think it gives some insight into your character and that’s important.
Reed: Um well I’ll just go through it again I …
Mark: Sure.
Reed: …indicating that my three favorite uh forays into history are uh an understanding of Will and Aerial Durant’s lessons of history so that I’m not likely to make mistakes based on what has gone before, uh I enjoy The Prince because it tells me um…what I ought to know about what people might be trying to do to me and then I uh look at the decline and fall of the Roman empire by given as somewhat of an indication of what might be happening, happening in today’s society. My entire life, the interests that I’ve had either to start something, that needs to be done and to help build it to the point where it’s pretty much routine, then I get out or to fix something that’s broken and once fixed and back on track and operating normally, get out. Uh and one of the things that I really love about Sand County Foundation is that its almost always broken, it can never be really fixed and uh everyday there’s something new to start. So that just gives you a little background on the kind of person that you’re going to be expecting to tell you the details of the history of Leopold Memorial Reserve.
Mark: Okay. Well let’s start at the beginning. Um who were some of the folks, the earliest folks that worked with you to start up the Reserve? 3
Reed: Uh Howard Mead and Frank Terbilcox.
Mark: Okay. And how did you guys first come together and brainstorm this idea?
Reed: Um Howard and I were drinking martini’s and cooking duck, it’s true, (Mark laughing) (unclear) and lamenting the fact that, that we like to go up to uh our cabin and that there was nobody there paying any attention to the Leopold shack, the family was pretty much all out of, out of the city or out of touch or otherwise occupied and they were selling 33 foot lots along the riverfront uh right up next to the Leopold property. And we really did talk about what we could do and how we could do something to keep that from damaging the Leopold property and uh ruled out the DNR, ruled out the state and literally at that point sort of came up and said “Well, why don’t we get a bunch of people to agree to not develop it, put some restrictions on it.” And uh Frank was tired of getting up at midnight to go and turn on the broiler in his Ross Floral Company so as we moved down the line we talked to him and he said “Yeah, I like to get involved” and then of course eventually became the manager.
Mark: Okay. Were there other models that you guys…
Reed: No.
Mark: …emulated? So you just came up with this all on your own?
Reed: Seemed like a good idea.
Mark: Okay. Who were the first land owners that were invited to participate?
Reed: Uh, inviting would be an unusual phrase uh but we made a map to look at who they were: it included Collins and Leopold’s and Terbilcox’s, which of course was a major section of what we’re trying to do. And then the Turners’ the Van Heusens were 4
the two key elements that we needed to have included and of course those were the ones that was most fun trying to convince them that we weren’t a hunting club from Chicago or the Wisconsin DNR. And I think those were the ones that we really attained uh permission from at the offset.
Mark: Did anybody refuse to join?
Reed: Uh no.
Mark: No.
Reed: But it was a long, hard sell.
Mark: How long did it take to sell?
Reed: I don’t remember. (Mark laughing) But there was a lot of evening in farm kitchens at the Turners’ and the Van Heusens and uh the Leopold’s is interesting, I’m not, you know that’s a whole just line through is whole history. Uh I really don’t remember much about their participation other than that they were willing to do it. Uh the basic concept, which was one of the questions that you asked, uh…if we could get a number of landowners to agree to not do certain things, and that was really to change the agricultural patterns and to change the structural patterns and if we could then get them to permit the entire area to be studied as a unit instead of each on their own individual basis for both research and education. And if we could then obtain, which was really the only legal thing we every got, which was (coughed) excuse me, which was uh the first right of refusal recorded and the consideration for that was to pay their property taxes, very simple.
Mark: Was the agreement signed by everybody then or was it…
Reed: Yea. 5
Mark: …but it wasn’t, the only legal part was the first write up?
Reed: What, well there was the agreement and then there was the first right of refusal, which was recorded.
Mark: Okay.
Reed: But the agreement was never recorded.
Steve: And research and education was part of the division from the start, you’re saying it wasn’t simply to protect the land that uh.
Reed: Well that depends on whether you’re talking about the martini party or once we got going on things here.
Steve: Right.
Reed: And got Frank involved and his becoming management. I don’t know what those timelines are (unclear).
Steve: Yea I’m not gonna.
Reed: …make any difference.
Mark: But what was the primary mission, if you had to say what the mission was at the inception? We can talk about how it changed, but at the inception if you would say you know was it research, was it preservation, was it…
6
Reed: It was whatever of those things we could convince two completely (unclear) farmers with something they would be willing to put up with. And that’ll sort of come into play when we get to what ought to happen on the LMR (unclear).
Mark: (laughing) Okay we won’t jump ahead then.
Reed: But uh I think the thought that was any grand scheme when we started to do this would be unheard. Uh I drafted the, I drafted the agreement; I just sat down with a dictating machine and drafted it, I don’t think it got changed much from what I drafted. I haven’t looked at it for a long time.
Mark: Okay. And when you first did the agreement, you mentioned the martini party and so on but what was the biggest threat to this landscape? Was it being developed or was it just uh…
Reed: Well we were, I think the trigger, if you want to look at that, was the combination of the absence of any of the Leopold’s in the area and uh the fact that they had sold all these lots on property that was adjacent. And you have to remember I’d spent most of my high school and uh some grade school weekends up there, as a kid so that place was very special to me. You know, you know it just happened.
Mark: What was it like going to the shack as a kid? I know I’ve deviated from the inception part.
Reed: The shack as a kid.
Mark: Yea, yea.
Reed: The Leopold kids picked on me, basically. And I was the guy who got to pump the water and carry the buckets through the trees.
Mark: That’s a lot of buckets. 7
Reed: Steve’s heard the story (unclear) swinging the birches.
Steve: No, haven’t heard that one.
Reed: You know how to swing a birch?
Steve: (unclear)
Reed: Jeepers (unsure of spelling)
(Laughing)
Mark: Maybe we need to…
Reed: What a lost youth you had. Uh you pick a birch of a certain size and theoretically uh (unclear). And you shimmy up it to where you think you are at the right place, then you grab it with both hands and you swing out. If you’ve made a good decision then it’ll gently drop you down on to the ground and then you can let go and it’ll go back up. So they use to encourage me to swing off too early so that I would end up on, about that far off the ground. (Mark and Steve laughing) Anyway, that’s a digression.
Mark: (laughing) but a good one.
Steve: Um.
Mark: Go ahead.
Steve: There’s the Coleman cabin on the property, now is that a later, is that something that you went to growing up as well.
8
Reed: Oh yea.
Steve: Okay.
Reed: Well the land we would go to, mostly we would to go Leopold’s. Now we had this vacant across Chapman Lake from the Leopold property. And I think it was ’45 or ’46 when uh our family bought the horse barn down the road from, from the Leopold’s down the river, which had been the cabin, the story and a half cabin for Mrs., you probably know better than I, the old lady who…can’t remember her name, but she had been born there and I remember going to talk to her and she would be able to tell you about Indians going by on the River Road in front of her cabin. Bought the cabin for a hundred dollars, disassembled it, uh it had been a horse farm so the lower maybe three courses of logs were rotten, but the logs were all numbered and I used to work at the camp; went up on weekends, moved it over and reassembled it on our property. Then we were able to begin to use that as well as the shack, the shack property we would just go up for a day and back the same day.
Steve: Okay.
Reed: Nobody wanted to sleep on those beds.
Mark: Did, in the early years you mentioned um going to farmers houses over kitchen tables and talking, were there organizational meetings, I mean did you have meetings where you actually took minutes and had to prescribe…
Reed: (speaking at same time as Mark) I saw the question.
Mark: Yeah.
Reed: And I think we tried to have a meeting once a year with the people who were on the reserve just to sort of bring them up to date. But uh, you know, people died, moved 9
uh it wasn’t necessary and the people who were actively involved were Leopold, Terbilcox and Collins, and Collins pretty much knew what was going on anyway so. But there was no, there was no structure.
Mark: You didn’t have a formal (unclear). [laughing] Cuz that’s what they’re getting at is that they’re trying to find out if there was…
Reed: Yea we probably did have something but it was probably ignored.
Mark: Well that’s one of the issues that came up the, they um, it seems like they’ve got good records for the Reserve from like 1975 onward. Did you guys keep detailed records before ’75.
Reed: No, not that I know of.
Mark: So, so they don’t exist. [Laughing]
Reed: I suppose there could be some correspondence buried in what we call the black hole out here but nobody wants to go up there and starting looking for it. But I don’t think um, I think it would have been…gee I just don’t know, I mean I don’t, there was no, now when did Charlie Bradley show up?
Steve: ’75
Reed: Yea.
Steve: ‘76
Mark: Yea ’75.
Reed: And that’s a basic, this thing was all pretty much (unclear) and, you know, once we got it together and once we accomplished and Frank did the management and I don’t 10
remember when Frank actually left Ross permanently uh or when he became a full-time. But uh then when Charlie came then we really began to have what I think we had all sort of thought could happen on a fifteen hundred acre piece of land that was individually owned but could be used uh in common for research and education. We had, you know, we had tours, Frank conducted tours, Charlie did his research I mean at that point it took a life uh of it’s own and onto itself.
Mark: Were you, were the organizers and you influence by the land ethic at all and if you were, was it (unclear) or did you talk about it?
Reed: No. (Unclear) we never sat down and said…
Steve: Be philosophical.
Reed: …this is all about the land ethic. I think if you spent the time I spent with the Leopold’s as a kid and in the late ‘60’s I had already spent four years in environmental science in college and in ecological so I probably had a pretty good idea of what it was without going to the Sand County Almanac and saying “Oh” or the essay and saying “Oh, there it is.”
Mark: Was it in the back of your minds that’s what you were doing though when…
Reed: I thought it was just the right thing to do and pretty much I think the land ethic is a description of what the right thing to do should be if you owned land.
Mark: Okay, good.
Reed: But, you know, I…these questions sort of describe a context that may not be fully justified.
11
Mark: Well, I was at some of the meetings and they’re fishing because, they’re fishing for information cuz we don’t know. [Laughing] You know the answer to many of these questions may well be “No” (unclear, laughing).
Reed: That’s why this is going to be short.
[Sounds like everyone laughing]
Mark: Did you guys…and we’re not trying to jump ahead to where you are now, but did you have a vision about what the place might look like, you know, five years into it when you first began? Did you, how did you envision it?
Reed: We pretty, pretty well made it up as we went along and Frank came on board and uh how could we teach what Leopold thought the kids and school kids and so forth and so and so we made trails. And, you know, that was as visionary as buying a mower on a tractor and Frank loved to mow trails and so we (unclear). And uh poison ivy control was a big deal, if you want to know one of the most evasive species um…yea I (unclear) developed, it happened, worked it’s way up to something and then Charlie came and it became much more serious.
Mark: Yea. Did the neighbors who weren’t directly involved in the Reserve know what you guys were doing? Were they generally supportive?
Reed: Um huh, and they liked it, they like it yea.
Mark: I could imagine they would be.
Reed: They thought it was great.
Steve: You mentioned though that was a hard sell to the Turner’s and the Van-Heusens, what made that a hard, what were some of their objections? 12
Reed: “Well who the hell are these guys coming into my, writing me a letter saying we like to meet with you” and we were either a gun club from Chicago (unclear) from Chicago and…they didn’t believe that anybody was really going to do this, I mean they couldn’t understand why these two people or three people (unclear) uh but it was mostly Frank and Reed. But “why are you doing this”, you know, “what’s in it for you” or “who are you fronting for” or “what are we going to find out that’s bad after we agree to do this.” It’s just, you know, hey here’s who we are, here’s what we want to do, believe us.
Mark: To overcome the skepticism . Now we’re moving into the questions about how the reserve’s changed over time and uh the first question we had there was, have you’ve seen land management or land use change in that area since 1965, (unclear).
Reed: Uh…sure, part of it was on purpose and part of it was controlled burns, the great expert trying to make an oak opening, uh was turned into a raspberry patch instead. Uh and the whole deer quality, hunting ecology for deer, the management hunt on a reserve, uh Frank uh doing some things on his own, which probably didn’t fit the original model but which were fine. I mean if you’re going to have private landowners then you have to say “You know it’s your land, you can do what you want to do.”
Mark: Right.
Reed: And uh when we start talking about the future and how do we do what’s next, uh if you want to get a group of land owners together to do something that’s good for the land, then you really have to go to each one and say “What is, what is the most restriction that you’re willing to except? And what is the most participation that you’re willing to do in order to make this work?” And once you have that then you say “Okay, well that isn’t enough to make a concept work, that isn’t enough to make it a real collaboration.” So their in (unclear), if they do join and you do have, with that reasonable level of private enterprise/private property restrictions, times change, people die, sons and daughters may 13
not wish to so the same thing so it has to continue to be something that the private landowner wants to do and I think maybe that’s part of the answer to your question.
Mark: Yea.
Reed: It came to the point where the Turners and the Van-Heusens, who were really the out layers in this whole thing, decided that this was something that they really wanted to and they did, they came to enjoy it.
Mark: Great. You mentioned a couple of changes that occurred; let me ask you one by one…
Reed: Sure.
Mark: …when some of these occurred. When did the public visits start on the reserve? Was it with the school children?
Reed: That was fairly early, I think, cuz that was mostly Frank Terbolicox. Uh and we didn’t call it public, we had to be very careful not to and uh we had some wonderful, I have signs still that have the uh “Danger” um “No Trespassing” or I can’t remember exactly what it says but it warns you not to enter this property because there’s an extensive poison ivy infestation. Uh I also saw a sign on a western fence this morning on the internet somebody sent me said um “Prayer is the best way to go to heaven, Trespassing is Quicker.” Um and it was uh…can’t remember now which of the Bradley’s, Luna I think, he and I were talking about something and we were talking about trespassing and so forth or maybe Star Trek, I can’t remember which one it was. And he said “Well why don’t you have a radiation sign made, with a symbol and all and then list the (unclear) underneath it” so we did; uh “Warning Radiation” whatever abeyant sunlight (unclear) is, was what we put underneath it and it worked for awhile, not really for very long but we had a good time doing it.
14
Mark: [Laughing] The first night they noticed it didn’t glow, they became suspicious.
Reed: The DNR didn’t show up and say “What are you doing?”
Mark: What about the ecological restoration? You alluded to that earlier, bringing back the oaks and so when did that start?
Reed: Well some of that, I mean, the experiment with the oak opening about five years old. Uh but uh controlled burns goes back a long way uh Charlie’s research goes back to when he really started and uh when the study center was built. Um and then as Frank, Charlie went away and as Frank got older then so those things tended to fall away and then Leopold’s research and interest has uh created that aspect to the quote, unquote “Reserve,” which was probably not a part of the original intention so I’d say that’s probably where the major shift has occurred. And I think that’s one of the reasons why LMR 21st Century is an important part of what we need to do, The Sand County Foundation point of view.
Mark: Yea, very good.
Reed: We don’t like buildings at all uh to be honest with you. Uh we think they focus things on inanimate objects and do not, from The Sand County’s point of view, represent what the Reserve’s, the outdoors, land owning is all about but you know ends with the money. Those with the gold, make the rules so we have the study center up there.
Mark: How has the Reserve, over the years cuz once again we’re looking at changes, affected the surrounding land owners that aren’t part of it, has it given them a better quality of life or you know led to occasional (unclear)?
Reed: Probably as, well if you look at the expansion out into the farm land to the west uh I think the awareness of the Reserve and what it’s doing is appreciated and maybe it gives some people some ideas. Uh I wouldn’t be able to document it. 15
Mark: Sure.
Reed: Any of that, other than the fellow who crops are fields uh had done some things that would be attractive and appealing and thinks he might want to be a member of the Reserve.
Mark: That’s great.
Reed: So who knows, would be the first pig farmer.
[Mark laughing]
Mark: What about deer management? There’s a bunch of questions that suggest, occasionally, deer management has been a point of contention with neighbors.
Reed: Uh.
Mark: I don’t know…
Reed: Deer management, well it was obvious that something had to happen in terms of deer hunting.
Mark: Right.
Reed: And that all sort of came to a head with uh quality hunting/ecology was the term used uh which still goes on. Uh and that’s to try and knock down the doe population, knock down the deer population to uh per square mile to per acre tolerance. Uh and so it was used, the Reserve was used, people wanted to (unclear) to agree to abide by those standards and a lot of people like to hunt there. Uh fifteen hundred acres probably not a large enough unit to do a really, fully capable scientific study but the (unclear) who are 16
quality deer uh activity in Pennsylvania is and so I think it was something that was; Sand County we always looked to see “Have we really done something here that affected policy” and although they say they invited it, the DNR did do essentially the (unclear), uh hunting (unclear). And you know we have a close enough interchange with the DNR so I’m sure it wasn’t, they’d never give us create for it but might have been their stimulus.
Mark: Did the Wisconsin DNR partner with you guys for the…
Reed: In some case, oh yea we’ll work with them as long as we don’t expect them to give us credit uh and as long as it doesn’t tamper with our pol, our concepts and philosophies. But uh and mostly it’s our helping them uh not so much they’re helping us.
Mark: Okay.
Reed: What else is new. So getting back to your question um…we tried to get a property owner across river, Phil Pines, to join in the quality uh hunting/ecology program. He liked deer, he didn’t mind the fact that they were destroying the undergrowth and so forth and so on. So hunting season after a few days all the deer went across the river onto Phil Hines property, when we were through they’d come back. So, but it was a principle and it was a concept and it’s been going on for what 20 years I’ll bet still is so. Okay, what else?
Mark: Over the decades of the Reserve you guys probably came up against various threats, land sell offs, roads and so on, can you recall any of those and how you dealt with them?
Reed: Um sure. Um…the town Highway Department was intent upon paving River Road and cutting down every tree within uh…20 feet of the sign. The way we handled that was to go and get a can of brown spray paint, a can of green spray paint and we went all the way down River Road on a Sunday afternoon and camouflaged off every X mark 17
that they had put on the trees to come down the next week. That was a threat, that would have really kind of ruined the, the um road; I don’t think it’s been paved yet. Is it Steve?
Steve: Levy Road, you mean?
Reed: Yea, no, no well Levy Road is one thing., I’m talking about the road through the Reserve. I think that’s, that’s still gravel?
Steve: I’m not sure which road you’re…
Reed: Well from, from the beginning of the Leopold Reserve to uh the Study Center.
Steve: Oh the one (unclear), I think it is paved now.
Reed: Is it now.
Steve: It’s not, not, the trees are still close to the road.
Reed: Yea, yea and I think that was the next fight, that if they were going to pave it, we understood, you know, they couldn’t keep it in gravel cuz they didn’t have any road graders anymore. And we even offered to pay to have it graded but there was a liability problem and so forth so, but I think that threat was taken care of by having paved to a narrow division and not a full standard. Uh I think one of the most interesting threats came from Leopold family and that was Nina when she wanted to build a house up there and she wanted to put it on a hill above the shack. And we said no and I said no and she didn’t and uh that would have been a real, that would have been an earlier tragedy. The Study Center, the uh Leopold Center and down the block is a later tragedy but and I’m not talking about as this tragedy from the point of view of what they’re trying to do but a tragedy from the point of view of the original concepts of the Reserve as a rather pristine place.
18
Steve: So how long did the negotiations last to have them locate the house to where it is now?
Reed: Uh…several visits. Uh one of which was Nina and I standing in the snow in the middle of a prickly ash…(unclear) and just saying, I just said “No (unclear) happen” and it didn’t. She could’ve done if she wanted to but that would have violated the agreements, it would not have been a good thing for the Leopold family.
Steve: Right.
Reed: And it would not have been, probably she would’ve had to get an exemption because that would have put it in surround by hundred year flood plain. But, you know, she…
Mark: What happened when you raised the issue about the Leopold Center
being built?
Reed: Oh we didn’t.
Mark: [Laughing] Cuz the first you raised it on (unclear).
Reed: No. That’s fine, if they want…there’s a difference between the Leopold Foundation’s objectives than ours.
Mark: Why don’t you tell me what they are as somebody from…
Reed: Very simple.
Mark: …outside.
19
Reed: Very simple. Both are commendable objectives, as far as I’m concerned. Uh the Leopold Foundation wants to memorialize and…create a lasting icon of their father. They want to be the uh curator for all the records, they want to have those records available; all of Sand County records are now at their center. Uh and they want to, to a certain extent uh Nina particular, wants to recreate her feelings for others about being at the shack. So I call it an archival shack related, Leopold as he was when he died objective. Sand County Foundation objectives are to apply what Leopold taught and to make sure that all of his “ethic” and all of the things in which he believed continued to be practiced, understood, not understood by going to read a book in a library, but understood by somebody grasping what it is that they need on the land with honors and doing, if we can help people do that or on the land or in the sea or wherever uh then that’s our Leopold objectives. So there’s a distinct difference. Let ‘em do what they want to do.
Mark: When you…
Reed: Don’t interest me.
Mark: [Chuckling] With the uh…
Reed: Probably interests the historian a whole lot.
Mark: But to get the people out on the land and actually see working land ethic on the land, or a Leopoldian worked site. Who did you envision coming out there, how did you envision that transmission, with the University did you think or just the local land owners?
Reed: The Leopold Memorial Reserve…as it exists now is the uh…the tiny, little piece of yeast in the sourdough bread that has now spread uh to all the lands that Sand County has any influence over; watersheds, ranches, farms, um fisheries. So the original idea, as the Leopold Memorial Reserve has moved on, doesn’t really occur on the Leopold 20
Memorial Reserve anymore for whole lot of reasons. Um we think we can bring some of that back by an educational walk, we can work with the Leopold Foundation to do together. But uh it’s not big enough; it’s just, you know Sand County deals in uh ecological time frames, ecosystem size regions now with the uh collaborative sage brush initiative, 11 states are involved. The only (unclear) is the nut that, from which grew what Sand County does and I don’t expect it to serve as the be all and the end all.
Mark: Are there other goals for the LMR, besides being the yeast in the bread?
Reed: Yea as the…nucleus for a major expansion.
Mark: In the surrounding area or…
Reed: No right there.
Mark: Right there.
Reed: And the whole water, the whole watershed of the Baraboo, Wisconsin on down to where the two meet.
Steve: How about seven years ago, there was that big flap where there was…the press leak about creating a large, expanded…I think it was a fishing pond.
[Mark and Reed talking at same time]
Reed: Oh no, no.
Mark: No, no that was my agency that was the Refuge. That was…
[Everyone laughing]
21
Reed: I wasn’t even going to mention it.
Mark: That was so bungled.
Steve: No that was part of…
Mark: Thanks for bringing it up Steve. I flew all the way across the country and now you gotta pick on the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Reed: I’m not picking on you.
[More laughing, talking at same time also. Can’t understand everything being said]
Reed: I think it (unclear) wonderful but if you’d stopped in here for 20 minutes I could have saved you the trip.
Mark: I know it was (unclear). I’m from Wisconsin, my parents…
Reed: Yea.
Mark: …worked for Dave Obi. I mean they know that, the first thing my dad did was (unclear) said “Well what the heck is wrong the (unclear) they have.” Uh he just, he…
Reed: All you needed to hear was the name Marcus Gums and he would have stayed right where you were.
Steve: (Unclear) as it was coming out of my mouth, I thought “Oh yeah, Fish and Wildlife Service.”
Mark: But we should talk about that cuz that…
22
Reed: Oh yea, I agree.
Mark: Go ahead Reed, I mean you were on the ground here. What happened and how did that affect LMR, that whole flop?
Reed: Well I don’t, uh…that’s an interesting question, I’m not quite sure I mean we tried to do it you know we tried to get going you know that. Sand County was getting up to their elbows in that mud uh and uh…you know we were willing to try anything with Marcus and of course (unclear). He um, uh eventually sued us and so we had to spend some money to take care of that, get rid of him on that. Uh too late for that piece of property, Mark?
Mark: I (chuckling).
Reed: I mean…
Mark: Yea.
Reed: …it’s pretty much gone. I mean it’s not, and that would have required massive watershed participation.
Mark: Yep.
Reed: And so forth. So it wasn’t part of the Reserve to the extent that it was thought to be an entirely entity.
Mark and Steve: Yeah.
Reed: Done in a different way by a much broader range of participants.
Mark: It would have been run as, from what I understand, as a refuge. 23
Reed: Refuge, yea.
Mark: But the, the trend with refuges now is to partner with their neighbors, (unclear), made a bigger corridor, worked with them, I know that was their vision I think.
Steve: That vision sounds like what you were talking about for the Reserve, in terms of scale.
Reed: Exactly. Uh you know we have a lot of Sand County’s initiatives as LMR 21st Century, and it’s to expand it, significantly including the International Bird Area as one of the motivations for doing that. And using the concept I discussed of (unclear) willing to collaborate on, whether you’re willing to share management on a larger piece of land and as we’ve sat around and talked about it, uh we’ve asked Peter (unclear of last name) to give us some help and some others. Um…discussion was “Well how do we do that?” And it may sound odd but my answer was “We’re going to do it just the same way we did the Reserve 40 years ago.” We’re going to go around, we’re going to sit down and talk to people and see what they’re interested in, tell them what we’re trying to do. Uh by this time I think we’re well enough known so we won’t be thought to be a hunting club from Chicago. And if they’re interested and if they’re wanting to do it voluntarily, the Will Writer Reserve Agreement that doesn’t look too much different from what it is. I think the one thing that we’re including in this, which is uh is a different take and that is Collaborative Management. So what you do on your land and I do on my land, we do again have a manager that we all pay, not just the Sand County Foundation as we did with Frank. Yea, there was no collaboration on payment for Frank’s work, that was the Sand County Foundation Costs, so to speak.
Mark: What other goals or priorities do you have for the future of the Reserve?
Reed: That’s pretty much it.
24
Mark: [laughing] That’s a big one.
[Everyone laughing]
Mark: And you already answered. Let me ask one question I should have asked earlier, but you know the Reserve’s been there a longtime; presumably some of the original landowners have passed the land down to their heirs and so on. Did anybody drop out or um question it when they over.
Reed: No, um…no John Van Huesen is now Russ’s son, he participates we just brought that land, I think or made some deal on a first right where he wanted to sell his, sell the house, I guess, I can’t remember exactly what it was. So we accommodate them, the Turners are long gone, I don’t even know who owns that any more. Did we buy that, I’m not sure. The one thing that we still work on but we don’t uh we don’t worry too much about it, is the Dubois property, which is that narrow thing that goes to the west of Leopold property and to the east of the (unclear) property. Uh but I think there’s something like ten or twelve, you know, inheritors and they don’t seem to have any interest in it and so having nothing happen it probably the best thing for it.
Mark: Okay.
Reed: But nobody left, Frank threatened every year or two but he wanted to do something (unclear Reed laughing) someone was tearing down this duck blind, his deer stand or something. There’s a guy I love, he just (unclear) fabulous.
Mark or Steve: Do you have any other…
Reed: We went turkey hunting with Frank, I went turkey hunting with Frank once and he was uh…we got out looking out of the blank about 4 o’clock; cold and one of his medications at that time was Prednisone and so he was going like this (making some motion), 99 miles an hour. And… 25
Steve: (saying something in background)
Reed: …finally he got cold, no turkey’s showed up. He finally looked at me and said “Why are we doing this, when we can go into a store and get one of these suckers for 99 cents a pound.”
[Laughing]
Reed: I had no clue.
Mark: I feel that way about fly fishing. You throw on a worm…
Reed: Now, now.
Mark: You know I get it right away but instead, you know, four times out of five fly fishing back where I do it, gets me nothing.
Reed: Yeah.
Mark: Although I caught a musky on a fly.
Reed: Now that’s an experience.
[Laughing]
Mark: I’ve never done that before.
Reed: But you haven’t stooped a carp fishing with a fly rod yet.
Mark: No, no. 26
Reed: That’s the new, big deal.
Mark: I’ve caught them by accident but you know.
Reed: Why don’t you go out west and fish for trout?
Mark: I do when I get the chance but I’m on the Potomac, mostly I fish in small mouths. I come back here and do walleyes. But I digress, Steve has non-fishing questions. [Laughing]
Steve: Just a couple. Um Sand County Foundation is more international in its focus, was that something, did Sand County Foundation come out of the Leopold Reserve? Or did you have a vision before you started Leopold Reserve for the Sand County Foundation? It wasn’t formed before the Reserve, correct?
Reed: No.
Steve: Was it a product of your work on the Reserve that led you to…
Reed: Well…
Steve: …incorporate that?
Reed: You’re asking a complicated question cuz there’s another part to the Sand County Foundation. The origin of the Sand County Foundation itself, is probably more originated to the Leopold Nature Study Center on the east side of Madison. Uh that was a um…Tuberculosis Sanatorium for Children for many, many years and it had been founded by my grandfather was the doctor. And built with funds from the (unclear of last name) family and as childhood tuberculosis began to disappear, the question was what to do with that piece of property. So we created a 501C3 called it the (unclear) Head 27
Arboretum and we hired an arboretum tractor and we started doing uh K thru 12 tours, primarily K thru 8. The whole idea was to get kids out on the land, belly boards in the pond, uh when we laid out a trail I said there will be no straight away on that trail that’s more than 50 feet before it has to turn so that when you’re going down the trail you’re looking at something and we had tours to look at as you went, so forth and so on. And that was really more of the structural origin of the Sand County Foundation. Uh…because…when the Sand County Foundation got going that no longer really fit the model that, you’re right, we saw for the Sand County Foundation, which was spreading out, going beyond the Reserve, dealing with a lot of other uh issues and landowners and…
Mark or Steve: Policy.
Reed: …whatever needs you want, so forth and so on. So we sort of divested ourselves of the Nature Study Center. And uh Howie Mead went on that board, a couple other people went on that board were sort of from our board, uh and…they hired somebody very good to run the program and for awhile it stayed pretty much, there was still some, see if I get this right without getting too complicated, uh the buildings were taken over by (unclear), which is an alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation…
Steve: It’s still there.
Reed: … Center, still there.
Steve: Yea.
Reed: And the greenhouse and the little potting shed down there, which is where the tours were run out of, stayed as part of the head arboretum and subsequently Sand County Foundation, uh Nature Study Center. And then when we sort of turned it over, at the same time we sold the property to (unclear of name). And this is one of those deals I just smile every time I think of it. It paid Sand County, I think it ended up being a million 28
five, a million four, a million five and the property was fully restricted so that DeLorean could continue to use it for as long as they wanted, that (unclear of name) couldn’t put any recreation equipment on it and that the Study Center had to stay there in (unclear) or for 99 years. So Sand County got a million five and the property continued to be used for the purpose that we wanted it used. Now what’s happened there, so that’s sort of the Sand County structure and then we began to do other things with Sand County. And um, what’s happened out there…um…they built a big building for classrooms. Um they built a miniature shack, for the kids to get in, and they just got an earmark from the state for five hundred thousand dollars to build a climate change laboratory to teach children about climate change. Knowing the political persuasion of the people who now is in charge of that on the board, uh Terry Kelley and including Nina; I would expect that Al Gore will be here for the uh dedication of that classroom. And I will hope that would it not become the Chicken Little environment institute for um (unclear) put it that way. So anytime a building shows up, I’m not particular enthused but that’s what they wanna do.
Mark: We’ve sensed that.
Reed: Twenty thousand kids, they say 20 thousand, I say 15 get out there, they do wonderful things, this gal that runs it now…
Steve: Kathy.
Reed: …Kathy (unclear), she’s great. She still hangs by the concept that you gotta get the kids out, gotta get digging in the mud, doing that kind of stuff.
Steve: Yea.
Reed: And uh, I have a high respect for her. Uh but uh…not my style. Now that didn’t, I’ll bet you’re sorry you ask that question.
Steve: No it actually clarifies things. 29
Reed: But the conclusion to that it is that, Sand County Foundation primarily sees something that needs to be done, figures out if anybody else is doing it. If they’re not, then we’re go out and start doing it and get other people to do it with us. So we don’t really know, almost from year to year sometimes from board meeting to board meeting, what it is that we’re going to pull up and say “This should be done, we think we can get some people to do it with us and we have the capacity to get it done.” So, I mean how did fisheries happen? We realized that fishery resources were being mismanaged; uh we realized that every meeting on fisheries was populated by governmental officials and researchers and we put together two conferences where we invited only fishermen. And it’s had a rather remarkable result, I don’t know if you knew that, I think you did.
[Mark or Steve saying something, too low to hear]
Reed: Sure you did. You just can’t have a guy from the former government official in your room for an hour.
Mark: Taping you.
Reed: Some fun.
[Laughing]
Mark: Do you have (unclear)?
Steve: I have one other question.
Reed: Sure.
30
Steve: Before you mentioned that there’s a black hole of files somewhere and I’ll be the one that’s actually integrating documents and oral interviews so, even if I’d have to go thru many, many…(unclear) I’d be interested.
Reed: Okay, when we conclude, I’ll ask Jackie if she can locate any and all files. [Yelling] DAN, just grab him for me.
Mark: I can stop taping this.
Reed: Yea we’re through with that I think.